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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27789286">Randomness</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgan_Primus/pseuds/Morgan_Primus'>Morgan_Primus</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Christine Chapel - 1, F/M, Fluff, I had this wasting away saved in unfinished fics and decided to post it, V’ger-0, ok, poor knowledge of actual medicine which I later worked to remedy, rarepairs do it better, sickbay was the real heart of the Enterprise, so um, these characters will rise above</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 14:21:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,636</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27789286</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgan_Primus/pseuds/Morgan_Primus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Christine Chapel/Spock</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Randomness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She’s at the boundary to the deadly phase of her illness which takes its victims as they sleep.</p><p>A double blow as it’s predicted they’ll have reliable treatment ready in three to six months. She’d be in the lab now working on a solution if she weren’t near bedridden, instead she works from her makeshift at home. </p><p>There are always medical staff on the grounds, waiting for that alarm that signals a patient in need of a hypo before they stop breathing. </p><p>A patient can be kept alive indefinitely if the state can be detected by machine or telepathy; this is a neurological alien pathology developed to kill its victims within three months. </p><p>The current antidote: a trained telepath on watch while the patient sleeps. </p><p>The antidote is not available to her, she knows one who’s at Gol, beyond communications technology. </p><p>She doesn’t know one who will spend half their life monitoring her until a non-lifeform antidote can be administered.</p><p><em>//Spock!</em> <em>I’ll never see you again! I’ll never regret loving you. Farewell, future kolinahru!//  </em></p><p>
  <em>**Would that I had bonded with that young scientist at the VSA instead of waiting around for a man too afraid of loss to love.* </em>
</p><p><em>**Between Len, Spock and myself, we’d have this beat within a week or two at most, instead of months. Only thing can save me besides a medicine coming through is a link sharer or bondmate watching over me as I sleep.</em>*</p><p>She’d cried all the time when she’d projected her farewell across the cosmos, over a week ago; an exercise no more productive than a balm to soothe her, she knew, but what harm?</p><p>They’ve nearly all been to visit her, to say their goodbyes or to keep her company. Len and Ny visit the most, Jim, Scotty, Sulu and Rand have sat with her. </p><hr/><p>She’s alone this evening, except for the nurse, reading med journals and case reports of others.</p><p>She needs a lab, a real lab where she can raise odds on her own survival. </p><p>The night nurse runs her checks, tests the critical sensor alarm before giving Christine permission to sleep.</p><p>Chris goes through the motions, will likely toss and turn for two hours then sit up and work from bed, until the nurse threatens to sedate her. </p><p>**<em>If I ever survive, I’m investing in more personal lab equipment, where no one can tell me I’m not fit to work on the cure for what’s killing me.</em>* </p><p>She hears familiar voices from the edge of her dream, two voices that are like agents of salvation to her, therefore she knows she’s in a dream. </p><p>Better this what-could-be dream than the usual nightmares, hmm. </p><p>She opens her eyes, it’s a waking dream. She cycles through the tricks she uses to wake herself when Len tells her he’s got some real coffee if she can’t keep her eyes open.</p><p>She blinks. Len is there, a warm smile for another night she’s survived, another day closer to the inevitable. </p><p>“Come on, Chris. Sit up. There’s a mug of coffee on the night table.”</p><p>“Thanks, Len,” she mumbles, wiping sleep from her eyes. Spock is there, sitting beside the head of the bed in a black robe, a little behind her field of view. He’s here, if she must trust her senses. </p><p>She grabs the coffee, it’s real and burns as she sloshes some onto her robe. She waits for someone to explain how Spock’s come to be here. She has no breath to ask. </p><p>Spock is silent, ghost...stone, as the face he always gave her. She made him uncomfortable, she’s thought, the face was meant to discourage chat. She’s not permitted. Precious few in that circle, she was cast out from the periphery after PSI 2000, every uncomfortable incident that followed pushed her further from the entrance of the inner sanctum. </p><p>Yet he’s here, a state more improbable than his comfort in her presence.</p><p>“Any news?” </p><p>“Yeah, he’s sitting next to you, Chris.”</p><p>“I know, someone want to fill me in?”</p><p>“Spock,” Len chides, “bedside manner.”</p><p>“That I am here is not sufficient?”</p><p>“There are a lot of blanks to fill in, Spock,” Len goads.</p><p>“Miss Chapel, I have read all information available to me. I can be of use here or in the lab, but not both - if I cannot monitor you from there,” Spock says. “While I serve little use sitting here beside you, the Good Doctor insisted I speak with you first.”</p><p>“Spock, I’d tell you how nice it is that you’re here, and ask all of the why’s and how’s, but you’d rather speak of more practical matters, wouldn’t you.”</p><p>Spock shifted forward so she can see him. She notes the strange figures in white on his black robe. “The ‘how and why’ are obvious, I assume? You touched my mind in your distress, you require someone to monitor your mind while you sleep.”</p><p>“Chris, if Spock has to be awake nearby while you sleep, he can help us if we can bring you and the lab together,” Len says. “If he can’t do both, we’re wasting potential. We’ll work on getting all three of us on the case, Ok hun?”</p><p>“Thanks, Len. I guess this isn’t the best time to ask how I touched your mind, Spock. Are you sure it was me?”</p><p>“Yes, Miss Chapel. I will let you view it if you wish.”</p><p>“Go ahead, Spock,” she says.</p><p>He touches her temple, sending his memory of the event to her. //Oh, that was my farewell. I’m so sorry, I never thought that would reach you. I’m at a loss.// She’s embarrassed and ashamed, which he feels from her.</p><p>
  <em>//I do not know how, but it would seem we are linked.//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//And they let you take compassionate leave from Gol?//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//No, they did not. I left, I cannot return. Since I carry a bondlink, I could not achieve kolinahr; now, it is irrelevant.//</em>
</p><p>She hears McCoy mutter something about how rude it is to chat where he can’t hear, his footfalls fade off toward the kitchen. </p><p>She struggles to school her thoughts.</p><p>
  <em>//Spock I have no words.//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//I was bond-summoned. How, why and who does not matter.//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//How do you feel?//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//It is logical to be bonded, feelings are irrelevant.//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//You are uncomfortable.//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//As are you.//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//And just like that, you accept it? If I should survive this, I won’t hold you to the bond if you prefer to break it.//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//To reject the bond would be illogical. I would inspect and strengthen the bond, as it was hid deep behind several levels of shields.//</em>
</p><p><em>**So it’s to be as impersonal as possible,</em>* she thinks, forgetting he can read her thoughts. </p><p>
  <em>//Christine, familiarity comes with shared experience over time.//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//We were crew mates for years.//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//As are several hundred others. Why expect preferential treatment?//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//The bond?//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//Which neither of us consented to.//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//You preferred to bond with another.//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//There is no consideration of preference. I did not seek to bond, but the bond exists. That is all.//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//You would never have chose to bond with me?//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//I do not know if this is true. It is true that the bond exists. This is sufficient.//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//But-//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//Christine, I did not seek to bond with you, nor anyone else, but the bond exists. To be bonded is logical.//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//But love-//</em>
</p><p>He sighs impatiently.</p><p>
  <em>//Christine, I respect you, I trust you, I am content to be bonded to you. I can think of no one else I prefer to be bonded with. Is this not love?//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//I’m confused.//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//I left everything and everyone behind to go to Gol. I left Gol behind to come to you. This is the beginning of wisdom.//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//I-//</em>
</p><p>
  <em>//Silence. Let me protect you while we work to heal you, first.//</em>
</p><p>As he begins to recite the bonding ritual, she responds to his invocation; he locates, traces and weaves their neural networks, then withdraws. </p><p>At first it is chaotic, noisy and confusing, she works to quiet her part of their shared mind chatter out of deference to him. </p><p>When her double vision begins to resolve, she concentrates on his mind voice chatter (in Golic) — it too is fading; as do his thoughts —moving and static images of memories and imagination superimposed—advanced alien thought processes indescribable in Federation Standard. </p><p>She’s feeling better physically, realises he’s sent support and comfort while she’s been distracted. </p><p>Spock places a tray over her lap. “Eat. We will work on the lab situation. Do not fall asleep, get up carefully, the bond may affect your balance. Stay in this room, unless you need the kitchen or washroom. Do not lock yourself in.”</p><p>“Yes, sir” she mumbles, starting on her breakfast. </p><p>She senses she’s had it backwards all along. A fragment of an old schoolyard chant floats through unbidden:</p><p>**'<em>First comes love, then comes marriage-'*</em></p><p>How would the Vulcan version go?</p><p>
  <em>**'First comes bond, then comes mating-'*</em>
</p><p>Then what? Someone mentioned love comes default with the bond, enjoying one another comes from getting to know the other. </p><p>Courtship after betrothal since parents match their children - not a factor here. </p><p>Because someone didn’t want to court her, courtship is out of order too. Hers is an emergency bond version (minus betrothal and courtship), variant two. Or three.</p><p>Variant one, she thinks, would be the ‘inconvenient pon farr’: bed nearest or most desirable option, then return to bondmate. Variant one point two would have them bond with their pon farr rodeo partner. </p><p>A ripple of amused and scandalised exasperation sweeps through and banishes her comparative culture musings.</p><p>
  <em>//My wife, Kroykah! Our first hour of shared bond, to find my bondmate, a brilliant scientist, absorbed in defiling the heart and soul of Vulcan to the level of degenerate childhood rhymes about terran mating practises and bovine cruelty sports! // </em>
</p><p> </p>
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